New Delhi, November 19 (IANS). Congress has accused the Election Commission of working at the behest of the Bharatiya Janata Party regarding the SIR. Along with this, Congress has announced an all-out fight against the Special Intensive Review (SIR) process. Congress has decided that a huge rally will be organized at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi in December.
This decision was taken in a meeting held by Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi with senior leaders at the Congress headquarters at Indira Bhawan. The meeting was attended by CWC members, state presidents, legislative party leaders, general secretaries, in-charges and in-charge secretaries from the 12 states undergoing special intensive vetting process.
After the meeting, Congress General Secretary (Organization) KC Venugopal and party’s Media and Publicity Chairman Pawan Khera told reporters that the politicization of the Election Commission will be exposed by holding a huge rally against SIR at Ramlila Maidan in the first week of December.
KC Venugopal said that a detailed meeting on SIR was held on Tuesday with 12 State Congress Committee presidents, legislature party leaders, general secretaries and senior leaders. The general feeling within the state Congress committees is that the Election Commission is deliberately trying to remove votes from certain sections of the society. This was also seen in Bihar and now plans are being made to implement it in 12 states.
Giving the example of Kerala, Venugopal said that local body elections are going on there, and the first phase of voting is on December 9. Booth level officers have been asked to give the final list on the same day. He said that the Kerala Assembly has passed a resolution to postpone the SIR process, but the Election Commission is not listening. BLOs are committing suicide due to excessive work pressure, they are being asked to complete the process within a month.
He also mentioned Assam and said that the Election Commission has announced a separate SIR for Assam. He said that this is a terrible attempt to weaken democracy in the country.
Congress leader Pawan Kheda said that names of people are being targeted and deleted in the SIR and the policy adopted by the Election Commission in Bihar will be repeated in other states also.
Pawan Kheda reminded that Congress was raising questions regarding SIR even before Bihar elections and Voter Adhikar Yatra was also taken out in Bihar. He said that there were five orders of the Supreme Court regarding SIR and all five were against the Election Commission, because the Supreme Court also clearly saw the bad intentions of the Election Commission. He also informed that the Congress party conducted a signature campaign across the country, in which more than five crore signatures have been collected. He said that if the voter’s rights are taken away then we all will raise our voice and it is our duty.
–IANS
MS/DKP
